The West’s Deaf Ears for the Real Moderate Arabs But, alas, the Ibrahims are the rarity, men given too little honor in their own old societies and far too little in the West.

One of my most fun professional memories was when I walked endlessly, circling round and round and round that hall in Algeria in November 1988 with a burly, no-nonsense, and brilliant newspaper correspondent named Youssef Ibrahim, who was then working for the New York Times.

Friendly, funny, sarcastic, and with absolutely no illusions or romanticism about the absurdities of Arab politics and the idiocies of Arab political ideology, Ibrahim’s only shortcoming is that there are not one thousand more exactly like him. If he was the kind of person leading Arab countries and people they would be far more prosperous, peaceful, happier and democratic.

But, alas, the Ibrahims are the rarity, men given too little honor in their own old societies and far too little in the West. The genuine moderates accept no excuses but comprehend precisely why the West has succeeded and the Middle East has not. Often seen as sell-outs, they are the most noble and courageous of people, far more concerned about their own people’s welfare than are the dictators, demagogues, and bloodthirsty academics.

These thoughts are prompted by an article he once wrote, presented below. I include the text because I want you to read every word. It is all completely sensible. Many will find it encouraging. It makes me want to cry.

Why?

First, because it all could have been written 10 or 20 or 30 years ago, indeed it is pretty much what he told me as we circled endlessly around the convention center way out on an isolated Algerian beach (there’s Arafat, surrounded by his coterie; there’s that moronic American Jewish Peace Now guy who is explaining to the PLO gunmen thugs why they really really want to make peace with Israel but just don’t know it; here come the sycophantic journalists…)

And it was published in 2006 and in six years and a half years there has been no advance on one single word of its text. Of course, the spread of revolutionary Islamism has revived the unwillingness to listen to Ibrahim, though the fate of Syria–the one Arab country he said still took the conflict seriously–should give pause to radical regimes who think this gambit solves all of their problems.

Second, because nobody in the Arab world listens to Ibrahim or to brilliant scholars like Fouad Ajami, which is their tragedy for preferring the demagogues.

Third, because it was published—of course—not in an Arabic publication (who would dare?) but in an American Jewish one, a group that includes all too many who think the fault is on their own side and don’t get what Youssef is saying.

Fourth, because if I were to have written these truths I would have been denounced with a hundred different insults.

Fifth, because if anything things are worse today than back then. (Can you imagine this essay of his being presented and discussed in a university course on the Middle East?)

And sixth because it’s now 2012 and we still have to be saying things like this! No, it’s worse: in 2012 the Middle East is starting a whole new round of the old madness. The Islamists tell the masses that the only reason their predecessors didn’t win total victory is that they failed to hit their head against the stone wall long and hard enough!

Here’s his open letter:

To my Arab brothers: The War with Israel Is Over — and they won. Now let’s finally move forward.

By Youssef M. Ibrahim

Jewish World Review, July 12, 2006

Dear Palestinian Arab brethren:

The war with Israel is over.

You have lost. Surrender and negotiate to secure a future for your children.

We, your Arab brothers, may say until we are blue in the face that we stand by you, but the wise among you and most of us know that we are moving on, away from the tired old idea of the Palestinian Arab cause and the “eternal struggle” with Israel.

Dear friends, you and your leaders have wasted three generations trying to fight for Palestine, but the truth is the Palestine you could have had in 1948 is much bigger than the one you could have had in 1967, which in turn is much bigger than what you may have to settle for now or in another 10 years. Struggle means less land and more misery and utter loneliness.

At the moment, brothers, you would be lucky to secure a semblance of a state in that Gaza Strip into which you have all crowded, and a small part of the West Bank of the Jordan. It isn’t going to get better. Time is running out even for this much land, so here are some facts, figures, and sound advice, friends.

You hold keys, which you drag out for television interviews, to houses that do not exist or are inhabited by Israelis who have no intention of leaving Jaffa, Haifa, Tel Aviv, or West Jerusalem.

You shoot old guns at modern Israeli tanks and American-made fighter jets, doing virtually no harm to Israel while bringing the wrath of its mighty army down upon you.

You fire ridiculously inept Kassam rockets that cause little destruction and delude yourselves into thinking this is a war of liberation. Your government, your social institutions, your schools, and your economy are all in ruins.

Your young people are growing up illiterate, ill, and bent on rites of death and suicide, while you, in effect, are living on the kindness of foreigners, including America and the United Nations.

Every day your officials must beg for your daily bread, dependent on relief trucks that carry food and medicine into the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, while your criminal Muslim fundamentalist Hamas government continues to fan the flames of a war it can neither fight nor hope to win.

In other words, brothers, you are down, out, and alone in a burnt-out landscape that is shrinking by the day.

What kind of struggle is this? Is it worth waging at all? More important, what kind of miserable future does it portend for your children, the fourth or fifth generation of the Arab world’s have-nots?

We, your Arab brothers, have moved on.

Those of us who have oil money are busy accumulating wealth and building housing, luxury developments, state-of-the-art universities and schools, and new highways and byways. Those of us who share borders with Israel, such as Egypt and Jordan, have signed a peace treaty with it and are not going to war for you any time soon.

Those of us who are far away, in places like North Africa and Iraq, frankly could not care less about what happens to you.

Only Syria continues to feed your fantasies that someday it will join you in liberating Palestine , even though a huge chunk of its territory, the entire Golan Heights, was taken by Israel in 1967 and annexed. The Syrians, my friends, will gladly fight down to the last Palestinian Arab.

Before you got stuck with this Hamas crowd, another cheating, conniving, leader of yours, Yasser Arafat, sold you a rotten bill of goods — more pain, greater corruption, and millions stolen by his relatives — while your children played in the sewers of Gaza .

The war is over. Why not let a new future begin?

Visit Rubin Reports.

Mitt Romney Captures Jerusalem by Barry Rubin

Speaking to an often-cheering group of about 400 people in Jerusalem, Governor Mitt Romney gave a speech less notable for what he said than for the fact that the audience believed he was sincere in saying it.

At a beautiful outdoor setting with the Old City in the background, Romney declared his strong support for Israel, using phrases often heard from American presidents. He also proclaimed his view that Jerusalem is Israel’s eternal capital. The difference, of course, is that those listening were less inclined to think that when President Barack Obama said similar things to AIPAC meetings he was describing his own views and policies.

Clearly, Romney was restrained by the American principle that partisan politics stops at the water’s edge, that no politician should criticize a president or U.S. government while abroad. Thus, Obama’s name—or even his specific policies—was never explicitly mentioned.

What Romney did do, however, was to scatter among the assertions of U.S. support for Israel’s security and a strong belief in a U.S.-Israel alliance some subtle references that many viewers and much of the mass media are likely to miss. Here are the key ones, which give some hints about Romney’s future campaign and possibly his presidency:

–Not allergic to Israel’s center-right. Romney quoted former Prime Minister Menahem Begin twice and referred to “my friend, Bibi Netanyahu.” Obama wouldn’t have cited either man and is known to loathe Netanyahu. Romney and Netanyahu have known each other for years. The Begin quotes were significant: that Israel will never again let its independence be destroyed (a reference perhaps to Israel’s need not to be completely subservient to America’s current president) and that if people say they want to destroy you then believe them (an explicit reference to Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons).

–“The reality of hate.” This phrase used by Romney struck me as very significant. It occurred in the context of speaking about how many Arab and Muslim forces feel about Israel. It shows that he is aware that the desire to destroy and injure Israel goes beyond pragmatic considerations and is not something people will be talked out of trying to do. It is enormously important for an American president to understand that there are those in the Middle East who hate the United States and Israel and that it is impossible to appease or befriend them.

As The Planes Take Off Bibi Thanks Barack for Convincing Him to Bomb Iran (Realistic Satire)

“Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign is now on the air with an ad that directly responds to the `3 am phone call’ commercial launched by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Texas earlier today. The commercial touts Obama’s `judgment and courage’ in opposing the Iraq war from the start and his clarity to see that the war distracted the country from rooting out terrorists in Afghanistan. `In a dangerous world, it’s judgment that matters,’ says the ad’s narrator.” – Washington Post, February 29, 2008.

The White House. 3AM. Some time in the future.

Ring! Ring!

“Michelle, can you get that?”

“Now, Barack you know you have to answer the phone when it rings at 3AM! After all, it might be Hillary and she’d tell everyone that you were….

“Ok, ok, but remember how well I answered that ad of hers! I reminded everyone that she voted for that inevitably losing war in Iraq while I wanted to quit because I knew the war was lost. Of course, that’s before I led the country to victory there….”

Ring! Ring!

“Hello? Yes, this is the president.”

“It’s me, Benjamin Netanyahu.”

“Bibi? Hi, old buddy, I was just telling Michelle that I really can stand you. Ha! Ha! (Winks at Michelle who rolls her eyes and goes back to sleep.) So what are you calling about at 3AM? I guess it’s 3AM in Israel, right?”

“No, Mr. President it is morning here. There’s a seven-hour time difference.”

“Oh, okay. What’s up?”

“Mr. President I just wanted to tell you that our planes are about to take off and bomb Iran’s nuclear installations just as you recommended.”

“What? You’re going to bomb Iran! What gave you that idea?”

“You did, Mr. President. Let me explain. You see, Mr. President, No Israeli government can tolerate a nuclear weapon in the hands of a regime that denies the Holocaust, threatens to wipe Israel off the map and sponsors terrorist groups committed to Israel’s destruction. Right?”

“That’s your view?”

“Yes, Mr. President but it’s also your view in the AIPAC speech.  And we’re doing this for you and your country because A nuclear-armed Iran is completely counter to Israel’s security interests. But it is also counter to the national security interests of the United States.

“But isn’t bombing a bit drastic? How will the world react?”

“It will support us because, as you so brilliantly explained, “The entire world has an interest in preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”

“Well, won’t Iran react strongly?”

“They can’t, Mr. President, because thanks to your terrific policies, Iran is isolated, its leadership divided and under pressure.” 

“Isn’t there some alternative?”

No, Mr. President, because A nuclear-armed Iran would thoroughly undermine the nonproliferation regime that we’ve done so much to build. There are risks that an Iranian nuclear weapon could fall into the hands of a terrorist organization. It is almost certain that others in the region would feel compelled to get their own nuclear weapon, triggering an arms race in one of the world’s most volatile regions. It would embolden a regime that has brutalised its own people, and it would embolden Iran’s proxies, who have carried out terrorist attacks from the Levant to southwest Asia.”

“Hm. That does sound persuasive.”

“And as you so eloquently explained, Iran’s leaders should understand that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And as I have made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests. Well, Mr. President, the time has come to put that policy into action.”

“Don’t you care about what I think Israel should do?”

“Of course, Mr. President! And I’m following your advice. Iran’s leaders should have no doubt about the resolve of the United States just as they should not doubt Israel’s sovereign right to make its own decisions about what is required to meet its security needs. Indeed, your genius-level analysis of the situation forces us to bomb Iran.”

“I see.”

“And that’s precisely what we are doing. We fulfilled your request. We waited and gave sanctions a chance. But our intelligence said that Iran would be able to build a nuclear weapon last Thursday whereas your intelligence said they needed another ten days. So we split the difference and the planes are now taking off.”

“But I was only saying that to get reelected!”

“Ha, ha, Oh, Mr. President you are so funny. I’d tell that one to Ehud Barak but he’s busy directing the air strikes. And of course you did win the election after you convinced the American people that free contraceptives for everyone was more important than the collapse of the economy. Brilliantly played.”

“Thanks, Bibi. But what I really wanted was to make some deal with the Iranians so they could not build a bomb right now and just hide all the components or maybe they could just pretend to give someone else the enriched uranium and….”

“You were quite right, Mr. President. We all wanted you to succeed. But Iran didn’t do what you wanted. Very foolish of them. But we are doing precisely what you said, right?

“Are you sure you won’t reconsider?”

“Mr. President! I’d never think of ignoring all the good advice you gave me and that’s precisely why we’re attacking Iran.  You explained in that superb manner of yours that Faced with these increasingly dire consequences, Iran’s leaders still have the opportunity to make the right decision. They can choose a path that brings them back into the community of nations, or they can continue down a dead end. Well, this is the dead end.”

“I was really great in that speech!”

Yes, Mr. President, we were all deeply moved, So much so that we waited [static on the phone line drowns out the precise number] months for diplomacy to work and yet the only thing Iran has given you in exchange is a spit in the eye and a knee to the groin. Well, you didn’t take that from Usama bin Ladin or from Muammar Qadhafi, right?  And, besides, as you always say, There is no shortage of speeches on the friendship between the United States and Israel. But I’m also mindful of the proverb, `A man is judged by his deeds, not his words.’”

“Yes, I did say that didn’t I?”

“So now we know you will fulfill your promises with deeds. You said that you have Israel’s back and we know you wouldn’t put a knife into it. Ho! ho!  And think of all this will do for green energy! With the price of oil going up it will mobilize support for your windmills, algae ponds, and solar panels.”

“That’s true.”

“Okay, I better go now. Give my regards to Michelle. That diet she recommended for me is doing wonders and I promise that all of the pilots going on the attack have been eating their vegetables. And, Mr. President, all of Israel wants to thank you for explaining to us why, when sanctions and diplomacy failed, we would have to attack Iran to ensure it can never get nuclear weapons.”

“Thanks, Bibi, and I’m glad you followed my advice.”    

Note: While the above is written in satirical form I believe that this is basically what’s going to happen. The words in bold are from Obama’s AIPAC speech.

Canada's Michael Coren interviews Professor Rubin about the Middle East and radical Islam.